Monday, April 9, 1973. Operation Spring of Youth.

Israel launched Operation Spring of Youth on Palestinian Liberation Organization targets in Beirut and Sidon, Lebanon.  Over 50 PLO operatives were killed to the loss of two Israeli commandos.

Shipboard Israeli commandos during the operation. By ניר מאור מוזיאון ההעפלה וחיל הים - ניר מאור מוזיאון ההעפלה וחיל הים, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43634278

The operation was part of the ongoing retaliation for the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

The United Nations Organization for African Unity conference on Southern Africa opened in Oslo, Norway, which is not anywhere near Southern Africa.  Norway was hosting the event.

As part of the Nixon effort to combat inflation, grocery stores were required to post signs at their meat counters listing the limit for prices per pound for meat. 

Friday, January 26, 1973. The Battle of Battle of Cửa Việt.

The Battle of Battle of Cửa Việt took place one day prior to the Vietnam War supposed cease fire coming into effect as the ARVN and South Vietnamese Marines, supported by US air cover, attempted to retake the port of Cửa Việt in Quang Tri Province.  The battle spilled on over to January 31 before it concluded.

Late war efforts such as this were also common to the Korean War.

The effort was unsuccessful.

The battle was also telling. The effort relied upon US air cover, in this instance supplied by the Navy and Air Force.  

The peace was supposed to take effect immediately, but never really did.

The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation went into effect.

Screen legend Edward G. Robinson, who is principally remembered for playing tough guys in the movies of the 30s and 40s, died at age 79.

Robinson was born Menashe  Goldenberg in Bucharest to a Jewish Romanian family in 1893. The family moved to the United States in 1904.  He joined the U.S. Navy in World War One, and served stateside.  He was already acting before the war, although he'd originally planned on being a lawyer.  He acted up into 1972.

Saturday, December 30, 1972. Operation Linebacker II stopped.

Operation Linebacker II was halted after a total of eleven days, following the North Vietnamese agreement to return to the negotiating table.

Friday, December 29, 1972. Life Magazine's final issue.

Life magazine's final cover issue date (it came out the week before.) ran.  The cover was "The Year in Pictures, 1972".

My father subscribed to Life, and also at one time to Look. Look really declined in its final years, Life not so much.  I can recall discussion on the last issue.

Edward Lorenz proposed The Butterfly Effect in his paper  "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" 

A takeover of Israel's embassy in Thailand, by Palestinian terrorists, ended after intervention by Egypt's ambassador and Thai officials. Before everyone left, they all had dinner together, including the terrorists.

Most of the last cycle of conscripts to the U.S. Army reported for induction.

The tragic crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 killed 101 of 176 on board as it went down in the Everglades.

Christmas, 1972. Soviet machinations.

The Soviet Union made it secretly illegal for Soviet residents to meet with foreigners "for the purpose of disseminating false or slanderous information about the Soviet Union".  

The USSR was faced with a growing internal dissident situation.

KGB head Yuri Andropov recommended that the USSR allocate $100,000 in U.S. currency to influence the upcoming March Chilean parliamentary elections.

Dunday, December 24, 1972. Bombing hiatus.

The United States halted aerial bombing of North Vietnam for 36 hours, commencing at 0800 local time.

The bombing campaign, Operation Linebacker II, had commenced only on December 18, 1972.  The bombing campaign was designed to force a North Vietnamese return to the Paris negotiating table, which had just recently seen talks break down.

Bob Hope gave his last Holiday's show in Vietnam.

I would have been nine years old at the time, but I can recall the Christmas bombing hiatus, as well as its commencement several days prior.

Thursday, December 21, 1972. Things German.

Flag of the former East Germany, the German Democratic Republic.

The Gurndlagenvertrag between the two Germany's was entered into, paving the way for wider recognition of both states by other nations.  

Flat of the Federal Republic of Germany.

It provided:

The High Contracting Parties,

Conscious of their responsibility for the preservation of peace,

Anxious to render a contribution to détente and security in Europe.

Aware that the inviolability of frontiers and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all States in Europe within their present frontiers are a basic condition for peace,

Recognizing that therefore the two German States have to refrain from the threat or use of force in their relations,

Proceeding from the historical facts and without prejudice to the different view of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic on fundamental questions, including the national question,

Desirous to create the conditions for cooperation between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic for the benefit of the people in the two German States,

Have agreed as follows:

Article 1

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic shall develop normal, good-neighbourly relations with each other on the basis of equal rights

Article 2

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic will be guided by the aims and principles laid down in the United Nations Charter, especially those of the sovereign equality of all States, respect for their independence, autonomy and territorial integrity, the right of self-determination, the protection of human rights, and non-discrimination.

Article 3

In conformity with the United Nations Charter, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic shall settle any disputes between them exclusively by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force.

They reaffirm the inviolability now and in the future of the frontier existing between them and undertake fully to respect each other's territorial integrity.

Article 4

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic proceed on the assumption that neither of the two States can represent the other in the international sphere or act on its behalf.

Article 5

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic shall promote peaceful relations between the European States and contribute to security and cooperation in Europe.

They shall support efforts to reduce forces and arms in Europe without allowing disadvantages to arise for the security of those concerned.

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic shall support, with the aim of general and complete disarmament under effective international control, efforts serving international security to achieve armaments limitation and disarmament, especially with regard to nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Article 6

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic proceed on the principle that the sovereign jurisdiction of each of the two States is confined to its own territory. They respect each other's independence and autonomy in their internal and external affairs.

Article 7

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic declare their readiness to regulate practical and humanitarian questions in the process of the normalization of their relations. They shall conclude agreements with a view to developing and promoting on the basis of the present Treaty and for their mutual benefit cooperation in the fields of economics, science and technology, transport, judicial relations, posts and telecommunications, health, culture, sport, environmental protection, and in other fields. The details have been agreed in the Supplementary Protocol.

Article 8

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic shall exchange Permanent Missions. They shall be established at the respective Government's seat.

Practical questions relating to the establishment of the Missions shall be dealt with separately.

Article 9

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic agree that the present Treaty shall not affect the bilateral and multilateral international treaties and agreements already concluded by them or relating to them.

[ . . . ]

The Federal Republic of Germany states for the record:

"Questions of national citizenship [Staatsangehörigkeitsfragen] are not regulated by the Treaty."

The German Democratic Republic states for the record:

"The German Democratic Republic proceeds from the assumption that the Treaty will facilitate a regulation of questions of national citizenship [Staatsangehörigkeitsfragen]."

[ . . . ]

The Federal Minister Without Portfolio in the Office of the Federal Chancellor

Bonn, December 21, 1972

To the

State Secretary of the Council of Ministers

of the German Democratic Republic

Dr. Michael Kohl

Berlin

Dear Herr Kohl,

In connection with today's signing of the Treaty concerning the Basis of Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany has the honor to state that this Treaty does not conflict with the political aim of the Federal Republic of Germany to work for a state of peace in Europe in which the German nation will regain its unity through free self-determination.

Very respectfully yours,

Bahr

English translation: The Bulletin, vol. 20, n. 38. Published by the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (Bundespresseamt), Bonn. © Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (Bundespresseamt).  Posted here for commentary.

The West Germans always hoped for reunification of the country, and the treaty was seen as advancing that goal.  In that, they proved to be correct.

Oddly enough, Paul Hausser, General of the Waffen SS, died on this day, perhaps putting some sort of weird point to events.  He was 92 years old.

Hausser has served in the Imperial German Army during World War One, the Reichswehr after that, retiring in 1932 and joined the SS in 1934.  During the Nuernberg trials he claimed that the Waffen SS was purely military, and he was one of the founders of the myth that the Waffen SS were soldiers like any others.  He worked for the U.S. Army Historical Division after the war, at first as a POW and then later an employee.  In 1950, he was active in the Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS ('Mutual aid association of former Waffen-SS members') which sought to rehabilitate the reputation of the Waffen SS.

Emblem of the Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS.

The reality of things, of course, is not only was the Waffen SS bad, but frankly the Heer, the German Army, was too.

The existence of HIAG cannot help but bring about a recollection of Frederick Forsyth's novel, The ODESSA Files, which dealt with an organization termed Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen (Organization of Former SS Members) which, in the novel, was more sinister, seeking to help former members of the SS escape detection in the post-war world.  That term dates, surprisingly enough, to 1946, at which time American intelligence was still concerned about German Werewolves, an attempt by the Nazis to keep on keeping on through a guerilla organization which in fact fell flat.  This morphed into an American belief of a post-war German organization of the type noted, although most historians have found that it simply didn't exist, although smaller Nazi based organizations designed to hide and aid former Nazis did.  Having said that, Simon Wiesenthal, who cannot be discounted, asserted that ODESSA was real.  It is known that the Austrian government investigated the existence of ODESSA prior to Wiesenthal going public with his views.

Tuesday, December 19, 1972. Apollo 17 splashes down.

 

Apollo 17 splashed down, bringing to an end the Apollo missions.

Saturday, December 9, 1922. Ulster governments, Polish presidents, American comedians, French trains.

The office of the Governor of Northern Ireland was created.  The office assumed the role previously held by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the prior 750 years.  The charge of the office was to "do and execute in due manner as respects Northern Ireland all things which by virtue of the Act and our said Letters Patent of 27 April 1921 or otherwise belonged to the office of Lord Lieutenant at the time of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922."

This office would only exist until July 18, 1973.

Gabriel Józef Narutowicz a hydroelectric engineering and politician was chosen to be the first President of Poland.  He'd serve for five days after assuming office on December 11, as he was assassinated on December 16. 

John Elroy Sanford, better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was born in St. Louis.

Foxx in 1966.

Foxx came up with a raunchy nightclub act before being cast in Sanford and Son in 1972, which propelled him into national fame. He was legitimately great in the role in which he portrayed an aged (beyond his actual years) father to a son who co-owned a junkyard with him.  The series had a predominate African American cast and dealt with the themes of the time, running until 1977.  A hugely popular series, it is still well remembered, and oddly its name is recalled in the Wyoming restaurant chain name "Sanfords".

The Calais-Mediterranée Express luxury train resumed service on its entire route in France.

Friday, December 8, 1972. Violent ends.

Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari, the PLO representative in France, was fatally wounded when a bomb exploded in his residence.  His assassination was the second reprisal killing by Israel for the Munich Olympic's killings.

United Airlines Flight 553, a 737 flight from Lincoln to Chicago, crashed at Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 43 out of 61 occupants, and two people on the ground, including several notable figures.

Illinois Congressman George W. Collins, who lost his life due to the United Airlines Flight 553 accident.

Among those who died was Dorthy Hunt, the wife of E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame, as well as journalist Michelle Clark. This has given rise to conspiracy theories regarding the incident.

Mrs. Hunt had met her husband when they were both employed by the Central Intelligence Agency.  As things began to go badly for her husband, she began to levy inside threats that if things didn't go well, she would blow the lid on things about the conspiracy and, according to some, other clandestine matters.

Hunt met with journalist Clark on the evening of December 8.  The plane hit tree branches while landing, which lead to the disaster.  Prior to boarding the plane Hunt had purchased $250,000 in flight insurance, a substantial amount, particularly in 1972, with her husband as the beneficiary.  She was carrying $10,000 in her purse, which E. Howard Hunt explained as down payment money for investments in area Holiday Inns.

All of this, and rumors about the investigation, have contributed to a conspiracy theory that the plane was sabotaged in order to kill Mrs. Hunt.

Thursday, December 7, 1972. The last to be drafted, Apollo 17.

Apollo 17 was launched.

It was the last of the Apollo missions and accordingly the last manned mission to the Moon.

This seems like something I should recall, but I don't.  I would have been in 4th Grade at the time, and moon missions were a big deal, but as noted, this was the last one and the 17th Apollo Mission. Fifty years later, I can't recall having paid too much attention to this one, although it seems to me I dimly recall it.

On the same day, the last conscription induction call in U.S. history occurred.  The call was to have been one of two to occur in 1972, but the second one was suspended due to a national day of mourning called by President Nixon in honor of Harry S. Truman, who died on December 26, 1972.  The conscription call would have occurred on December 28. 

The men who were chosen in the draft lottery on this day did not, I believe, immediately but in 1973. This was, after all, in December.  Having said that, I'm not completely certain.  49,514 men were inducted into the service via conscription in 1972.  646 were inducted in 1973, with the final induction occurring on June 30, 1973,  The height of the Vietnam War era induction occurred in 1966, when 382,010 men were inducted.

On January 27, 1973, President Nixon suspended conscription. In part this recognized the impending end of the Vietnam War, but the move was also clearly political and designed to address increasing civil unrest in spite of the obvious coming end of the war.  Conscription had been resumed in 1948 and the Cold War was far from over, but moral in the U.S. military was disintegrating to the crisis level, which provided another, albeit unstated, reason for suspending the draft.  The Army started rebuilding itself as an all volunteer force in 1973, but it would really take until the Reagan Administration for a new, effective Army to form.

Congressional authority to induct expired on June 30, 1973, although oddly lottery drawing continued until March 12, 1975.  Registration for conscription terminated on April 1, 1975, which I can recall occurring.  Registration would resume, however, a mere five years later, in 1980, and it remains a legal obligation for men.

Men drafted on this day would have found themselves in the odd situation of having to serve in the U.S. Army until late 1974, according to The New York Times, which ran a headline on November 23, 1974, that the last conscripts had been discharged.  If that is correct, they must have been let go slightly ahead of schedule, which likely would have reflected the end of the Vietnam War and a drawdown that sought to eliminate men who didn't want to be there.  Otherwise, the June 30, 1973, inductee should have served until June 1975.  The last pool applied only to men born in 1952 or later, so it applied only to men in their early 20s, for practical purposes.

The end of the draft really returned the U.S. military to its historical norm. The Army had not conscripted at all until the Civil War, and then did not do it again until World War One.  Militia service, of course, was mandatory in the US up until around the Civil War, when it started to slowly die off as a observed state requirement.  The World War One and World War Two drafts had been enormous, with the US drafting 2,294,084 in 1918 alone, and 3,323,970 in 1943.  Following 1940, there'd only been one year, 1947, in which there had been no inductions, up until 1974.

The last man inducted was Dwight Elliot Stone.  He was a married plumbers apprentice living in Sacramento who was 24 years old at the time and had two kids.  He tried to avoid to hide induction before finally turning himself in.  He served in the Army for 17 months (which would make the NYT article at least a bit inaccurate) before being discharged early for reasons he wasn't aware of, but which were probably due to the fact that by 1975 the Army didn't really want unwilling soldiers around.

Stone went to basic training at Ft. Polk, at which the press followed him around a bit.  He was trained as an electronic technician, after which he was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.  Upon his discharged he was quoted as saying "I wouldn't have joined.  It wasn't the place to be. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. I didn't like it. It was poorly run.''

In the early 70s, it was in fact poorly run.

Stone went back to work as a plumber/pipe fitter in Sacramento, but over time his view changed, as it did for many who had been conscripted in the same period.  He later stated that while he didn't like being in the Army, he'd had a lot of fun while in it, and he used his service benefits to attend two years of college.  His oldest son enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Thursday, December 7, 1922. Coal, Boats, and Killings.

 

The Parliament of Northern Ireland voted unanimously to remain in the United Kingdom.  The Army of the Irish Free State severs communications with units based in Northern Ireland. Irish Parliamentarians and former members of the IRA Sean Hales of Cork and Padraig O'Maile of Mayo emerged from lunch at a hotel on Ormonde Quay in Dublin and were shot in revenge for the execution of IRA members earlier that week.  Hales was killed and O'Maile severely wounded.

The Northern Irish Parliament would govern Ulster on a home rule basis until 1972, when it was suspended due to its inability to address The Troubles.

The President's yacht was hit.

The public in Wyoming was apparently following the sensational trial of the Governor of Missippii and the results of a murder trail in Casper where the convicted assailant was a woman.

Saturday, November 18, 1922. Sanctuary

The USNS Sanctuary was recommissioned and became, at the same time, the first U.S. Navy ship with a mixed male/female company.

The hospital ship had entered service originally in 1944 and served in that war, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  It was decommissioned and commissioned three times during its service before being finally decommissioned in 1975.  She was sold for scrap in 2011.

Friday, November 17, 1972. The return of Juan Peron.

Juan Peron, controversial figure of Argentina, returned to that country.

Person had started off as a career officer in the Argentine military, and participated in the coup which overthrew the democratically elected government in 1943. Her served as President of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 when he himself was overthrown in a coup, but returned to the country this year, having remained a figure in politics the entire time, and would soon return to power, albeit briefly given his 1974 death.

Politically, Peron is difficult for Americans to grasp and is often poorly defined.  He held a corporatism view of economics, which is a view he shared with Italian fascists, although he cannot be regarded as a fascists himself.  He's ultimately found his own political party, which held the following corporatist's tenants:

Original Justicalist symbol.

1. A true democracy is that one in which the government does what the people want and defends only one interest: the people's.

2 Peronism is essentially of the common people. Any political elite is anti-people, and thus, not Peronist.

3 A Peronist works for the movement. Whoever, in the name of Peronism, serves an elite or a leader, is a Peronist in name only.

4 For Peronism, there is only one class of person: those who work.

5 Working is a right that creates the dignity of men; and it's a duty, because it's fair that everyone should produce as much as they consume at the very least.

6. For a good Peronist, there is nothing better than another Peronist.

7 No Peronist should feel more than what he is, nor less than what he should be. When a Peronist feels more than what he is, he begins to turn into an oligarch.

8 When it comes to political action, the scale of values of every Peronist is: Argentina first; the movement second; and thirdly, the individuals.

9. Politics are not an end, but a means for the well-being of Argentina: which means happiness for our children and greatness for our nation.

10. The two arms of Peronism are social justice and social help. With them, we can give a hug of justice and love to the people.

13. Peronism desires national unity and not struggle. It wants heroes, not martyrs.

14. Kids should be the only privileged class.

15. A government without doctrine is a body without soul. That's why Peronism has a political, economic and social doctrine: Justicialism.

16. Justicialism is a new philosophy of life: simple, practical, of the common people, and profoundly Christian and humanist.

17. As political doctrine, Justicialism balances the right of the individual and society.

18. As an economic doctrine, Justicialism proposes a social market, putting capital to the service of the economy and the well-being of the people.

19. As a social doctrine, Justicialism carries out social justice, which gives each person their rights in accordance to their social function.

20. Peronism wants an Argentina socially 'fair', economically 'free' and politically 'sovereign'.

21. We establish a centralized government, an organized State and a free people.

22. In this land, the best thing we have is our people.

The party took the term Justicalist for itself, and oddly had a female branch, as a second party, headed by Eva Peron, his second wife.

Eva and Juan Peron.

Peron was married three times, outliving his first two wives.  

Aurelia and Juan Peron.

His first wife, Aurelia, is barely recalled, no doubt because of Peron's real rise to power came after her death by uterine cancer in 1938, at which time she was 36.  

His second wife Eva was a legend and became celebrated in a musical in which she was played by Madonna.   She was an Argentine basque who was born illegitimately with he father being a wealthy rancher who maintained two families, although he later abandoned his second, illegitimate one, leaving them in poverty. She was 33 at the time of her death in 1952 of cervical cancer, by which time she had become a very public  Justicalist figure at a time in which female public political figures were quite rare.  She was regarded as being very glamorous.

His third, Isabel, outlived him and succeeded him as President.

For reasons that were hard for me to grasp at the time, the Peron's had quite a sympathetic following in the United States, and I guess they must still somewhat, or at least did at the time that Evita! was filmed.  This might in part be because Eva Peron was such an unusual figure.  I can recall my mother finding the Peron's very interesting and admiring them.

Tuesday, November 14, 1972. Closing above 1,000.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 for the first time in history.

It had been first calculated in 1896.

Sunday, November 12, 1972. End of the Flight 29 Saga.

The absurd drama of the hijacking of Southern Airways Flight 49, which I haven't reported on, ended after a tense 29 hours as the hijacked DC-9 landed in Havana on orders of the hijackers Henry Jackson, Lewis Moore and Melvin Cale.

DC-9.

They were immediately arrested by the unimpressed Cuban authorities. Southern Airlines picked up the 27 passengers and returned them to the US.  Jackson, Moore and Cale served eight years in a Cuban prison and were repatriated to the US, where they were then arrested for the matter in the US and were sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Saturday, November 11, 1972. The U.S. Army leaves Long Binh.

On this day in 1972 the U.S. Army turned Long Binh (Tổng kho Long Bình) over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

The change of occupation was part of the U.S. drawdown from the Vietnam War.

Wednesday, November 8, 1972. HBO Premiers, Nixon Fires.

Home Box Office premiered with its first broadcast being a NHL game between the Rangers and the Canucks.

President Nixon announced that he had asked for the resignation of everyone serving in his cabinet or whom he had appointed to office.

Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Nixon Reelected.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 7: 1972 President Richard M. Nixon was re-elected in a landslide over Democrat George McGovern.

President Richard Nixon overwhelmingly won reelection to the Oval Office, defeating George McGovern.

I recall this election occurring, which means that this is probably the first Presidential election I directly remember.

In that same year, locally:

1972  A Sublette County straw poll shows 970 people opposed to, 279 in favor of and 105 undecided on the "Wagon Wheel Project" which would extract natural gas in the area with five underground nuclear explosions.  Yikes!  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Friday, November 3, 1972. Mutiny on the Constellation

For the second time in a month, a U.S. Navy vessel experienced a mutiny.

By JohnKent - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60128644

In this instance, 132 mostly black sailors of the USS Constellation refused to leave the mess deck in protest over announcements made the day prior that sailors would be discharged, including five with less than honorable discharges, all of whom were black.

The story of the mutiny and what led up to it is somewhat involved. The ship's home port was San Diego.  In 1971 the ship had been the target of an effort by the Concerned Officers Movement which resulted in a straw vote in the city that it not redeploy to Southeast Asia.  Of course, a city cannot vote in any binding way upon such a thing.  Nonetheless, a lot of military personnel voted in the straw poll and were opposed to redeployment.  This resulted in a Stop Our Ship movement.

When the ship did deploy in 1971 nine crewmen went AWOL and took refuge in a Catholic Church, acquiring the term the "Connie Nine".  They were arrested, charged and the latter honorably discharged from the Navy.

In 1972, back in San Diego, the ship reported that it had 250 more men than it needed or could house, resulting in the discharges.  The remaining discharges were to be honorable and were to be men culled because their enlistments would expire while the ship was deployed, but this turned into a rumor that black sailors were being discharged.  This led to the passive uprising.

While the Navy officially does not regard this as a mutiny, it fairly clearly fits at least a loose definition of one and, moreover, serves as an example on how the US military was becoming unglued in the later stages of the Vietnam War.